Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Pro's and Con's of Mike D'Antoni on the Lakers

After two days of
preparations for the Phil Jackson reunion parade, with widespread reporting
that he was the overwhelming favorite to replace Mike Brown, in came Mike
D'Antoni. The notion of anyone but Jackson taking over this star-studded roster
received scoffs from the Los Angeles Lakers community, and seemed extremely remote.

In the wake of Mike D’Antoni
being hired by the Los Angeles Lakers, many Laker fans are extremely
disappointed by the signing of the former Phoenix Suns coach. D’Antoni is a
coach who, at first glance, looks like an odd choice by Los Angeles. If Phil
Jackson’s asking price was indeed too high, why not take a little bit longer in
your search for a coach (especially with D’Antoni not being able to join the
team immediately because of knee replacement surgery) and really take a hard
look at Jackson’s former assistant (and known user of the Triangle offense)
Brian Shaw or defensive minded, but not one dimensional Nate McMillan? At the
very least, give legendary former Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan an opportunity to
meet with Mitch Kupchak and then make your decision in a manner that doesn’t
look rushed. Ultimately, Mitch decided the sooner the better, and pulled the
trigger on a 3 year deal with an option for the 4th year.

While D'Antoni has about as
much post season success as Mike Brown does, in other words falling short of
the Larry O’Brien trophy his whole career, he is innovative and bold in ways
that Brown was never known to be. His vaunted seven-seconds-or-less offense led
to a 232-96 regular season mark (70.7%) from 2005 to 2008 as the Steve Nash and
Amare Stoudemire-led Suns fell in two Western Conference Finals, a semifinal
and a quarterfinal. His three seasons in New York (103-143 record, swept in his
only playoff appearance) were extremely disappointing but I do not see this as
deficiency from his part since he was given a patched together roster of
players who could never and will never fit with each other. In other words, New
York surrounded him with a dysfunctional team and a mismatched roster that
hardly ever fit his point guard-reliant system.

I’m not sold on D’Antoni. At
first glance, his offense system doesn’t seem to fit with the large amount of
veteran players on the court, although he did work with Dwight Howard and Kobe Bryant in the 2008 Olympic Games as an assistant coach, and again with Bryant
this past summer. His system in Phoenix
was so successful because the personnel he had with those teams were perfect
for it; of course, I expect Steve Nash to thrive once again with D’Antoni, but
the rest of the team is truly a question mark, save for Howard. D’Antoni’s
system is a mesh of the pick and roll combined with pushing the tempo to the
maximum and looking a shot before the defense has a chance to set. Howard and Nash
running the pick and roll should be a devastating duo, no doubt about it;
however the rest of the team isn’t poised to be sprinting all game long. In
Phoenix, D’Antoni had speed demons and three point specialists, something the
Lakers have lacked since the days of Magic Johnson. The mid 2000’s Suns had
prototypical “stretch-4’s”; Power Forwards with speed and/or mobility and
outside shooting ability. The Lakers have Pau Gasol, who has excellent mobility
for a 7 footer, but his shot only extends to about 17 feet and that’s pushing
it. Meanwhile, Antawn Jamison has excellent shooting range, but he lacks the
speed to truly run with Nash.

Still, this is the least of
my worries when it comes to D’Antoni’s coaching philosophy; what I’m truly
concerned about is D’Antoni’s complete lack of defensive coaching. D’Antoni’s
philosophy is to simply outscore the opponent, defense or not. A sound strategy
if you have a team full of Leandro Barbosas and Steve Nashes, players who lack
defensive ability, but this team has 3 time Defensive Player of the Year Dwight
Howard, 12 time All-Defensive team member Kobe Bryant, and one time Defensive
Player of the Year Metta World Peace, obviously this team is worlds different
from the mid-2000’s Suns. This, coupled with personnel that doesn’t quite fit
his offensive system, is why I believe D’Antoni will work with Bryant, Gasol
and Nash to tweak his system to fit the style of play of his star players; this
is what any good coach would do, and I truly believe D’Antoni is a very good
coach.

The obvious dilemma lies in
the players Los Angeles has, however I believe that D’Antoni will likely make
his offense into a primarily pick and roll based offense, while adding some
isolations in the post for Gasol, Bryant and Howard.

It certainly appears that
Mitch was attempting to create something similar to the Showtime Magic Johnson
Lakers, with minimal defense and a spectacular transitional offense leading to
multiple championships and the consistently leading the league in points scored.
And while certainly a spectacular style of play, this type of offense hasn’t
had much success in the NBA since those Magic-led Lakers were running teams off
of the court.

I seriously doubt we see the
Phoenix Suns version 2.0, the players simply don’t fit into that style of play,
but I do expect to see something between what the Lakers are now and what the
Suns were then; an improved offense once Nash makes his way back to the court,
as well as a major improvement from the bench since it appears running a
simplified offense with one star player on the court has done wonders for the
second unit under Bernie Bickerstaff (the bench has averaged 29.5 points per
game without the Princeton Offense), but enough defense from Bryant, World
Peace, Howard and Gasol to be ranked about 10th in total defense. That
sounds wonderful on paper, but can the Lakers make the transition? We will find
out soon enough, for now Los Angeles must focus on the San Antonio Spurs tonight
with Bernie Bickerstaff still coaching until D’Antoni can report to practice.

Steve Blake will not play in
tonight’s game against the Spurs (6-1) with an abdominal sprain. He is listed as
day-to-day. A few interesting stats for tonight’s game: the Lakers and Spurs
are nearly identical when it comes to points per game (98.6 PPG for Los
Angeles, 98.4 for San Antonio) as well as average points allowed (94.4 for L.A,
94.1 for San Antonio), yet their records are vastly different, as the Spurs
have jumped out to an extremely good start.